Beat Backbones

It happened like Dominoes. The soft pearl-like light would stream in from the hall, the door handle twisting. Quiet footsteps. It was the same for three straight nights. He would wake up to a few fingers nudging his shoulder. Is he awake, can he please be awake right now?



Brendon was first.



The turquoise beaded bracelet that Ryan made for him was actually cold on Jon's cheek. Brendon said, "Jon, are you asleep? Can - Do you wanna talk?" Before Jon even opened his eyes, he felt Brendon crawl over him to the other side of the bed, the sheets wrinkling in the form of Brendon's hands, his knees, and then the pillow dipping with his head and cheek.



Jon's eyes were still closed, "Yeah, let's talk, Brendon." He didn't sit up. He didn't turn the light on, just rolled onto his side so that Brendon knew that he wasn't trailing off back to sleep. Brendon had his undivided attention.



Was it too much coffee? Had Spencer left out the Pop Rocks again? Jon licked his dry lips and watched Brendon bite his lip, hair a mess, eyes puffy and wide from his obvious lack of sleep, his worry. Jon could see it, even under simple moonlight it was evident. Jon slipped his fingers around Brendon's wrist, touching the beads. Brendon barely let himself smile, but his eyes softened.



"Walker, what if we fuck up?"



"You're not going to," Jon whispered, counting beads in his head, sliding along the string. It was a weak piece of candle wick that wasn't meant to make bracelets, only to light rooms, but Jon watched Ryan sit on the floor downstairs with his kit of beads and drop little round colors on the wick for each of them.



Brendon's eyes narrowed, "No - I - Don't you mean 'we'?"



Jon counted seven, eight, nine, ten beads. "Yeah, we."


-


Spencer was second.



Jon had just fallen asleep. He was in that mindset where he wasn't sure if Spencer was apart of his dream or if his dream had stopped and Spencer interrupted it. The door clicked shut without being quiet - the latch is the latch and it's going to make the same sound even if you're trying to be quiet.



Spencer tip-toed across the floor. He had his slippers on, Jon could hear them sliding closer and closer and closer. He felt dizzy, tired. Spencer pushed down on the mattress a few times. "Jon? Can - are you awake?" He sat down when Jon said he was, positioned himself right around Jon's waist. He said, "Today was good, right?"



Jon reached up and smoothed down Spencer's hair and they caught the other smile, warm and worn. Spencer locked his pinky finger with Jon's. "A song and a half isn't bad, right?"



"You're doing fine, Spence," Jon assured him. Spencer all pale and overheated. The contrast was delightful to touch. Jon tapped his fingers against Spencer's, a broken and mindless beat. Spencer shrugged and then shook his head.



"Well - yeah. No, don't you mean 'us', Jon?"



That's twice now. Jon pushed his fingers up through Spencer's sleeve and tugged on the bracelet Ryan made for him. The beads were warm, warm with Spencer's body heat. The nervousness that was throwing itself against Spencer's pulse. His beads were white.  



"Yeah. That's what I meant."


-


Ryan was third.



The third night was the last of the dominoes. The one that falls the hardest. Brendon was the one that twitched the hardest and knocked down the rest of them, because he was supposed to be the one who spoke the loudest, staged himself the most. If he fell, his backbone fell, Spencer. And if Spencer fell, there goes the spirit behind the song, Ryan. The last of the dominoes. The one that blew the feather over at the end, ended the world.



Jon held his breath, the door pushing itself open. The white glow took up all of the six inches Ryan needed to slip through the crack. He twisted the handle and shut the door and didn't release the handle until it was closed, so that the click didn't click, just closed. Spencer could learn a thing or two.



Ryan spun his index finger through his beaded bracelets. Ryan made himself three or four out of nervous habit when he couldn't write. Jon must have watched Ryan slide beads onto pieces of wick for a few hours when they first got here. It was a little obsessive compulsive and made Jon want to wash his hands. He waited for Ryan to do something to wake him up.



Across the room, still near the door, Ryan did nothing. From what Jon could tell, he just stood there, spinning his home-made jewelry around his bony wrist. Jon could imagine the skin there going numb, reddening from the orbiting plastic. Ryan exhaled, slow and long.



"Ryan? You're obviously aware this isn't your room," Jon said quietly. "Did - Is something wrong?" Jon wanted to sit up, but couldn't. He didn't know what had hindered him, he just couldn't. A static built up in his ears, working through his pillow.



"I can't sleep," Ryan said by the door. "Brendon's not up and Spence went to bed about an hour ago. Do you want to talk for a little awhile, until I get tired?" Ryan took a cautious step forward, like he didn't know whether or not Jon was going to yell at him or not.



"Yeah," Jon said. "Come on over."



The relief filled the room, and Ryan was such a small person. He wasn't even dressed for bed, still in his green and black pinstripes and t-shirt. He smelled like candy as he sat on Jon's bed, which meant he was just in the kitchen. It was cotton candy or maybe marshmallows. Really, Jon could never tell the difference. The faint grind of bead on bone rushed through the static in Jon's ears and reminded him of a clock.



Ryan perched himself on the edge of the bed, didn't crawl in close like Brendon, didn't sit near like Spencer did. He was barely there at the foot of the mattress, his twirling finger relentless. Jon smiled sympathetically for the bones in Ryan's hand. He still didn't sit up. Only asked, "What did you want to talk about?" If he could guess, it would be about recording, writing, finishing the record, and not slumping like the curse said. The infamous sophomore slump that so many great bands fell to.



"I think we should start over," Ryan said lowly. "I don't - This isn't working out."



Out of left field, Jon imagined that the baseball was back in the game and it smacked him hard in the side of the head. Even to him, the analogy was stupid. He blinked up at the ceiling. He really hoped Ryan didn't mean, "Things aren't working out as well as I'd hoped, you know with your song writing. The other guys and I, we talked it out and we'd really just like to be a trio, have somebody fill in on bass. Paramore's doing it with their guitar player."



Ryan turned a little, craned his neck. "I want to scrap these songs. They sound like Sondheim had a musical battle with Elfman for fuck sake. And I mean - That's actually a little awesome, but. I don't feel good about it yet."



Jon nodded against his pillow. He watched as Ryan turned all the way around and smiled at him a little in the light. It was an unsure facial gesture and Jon returned it, just for Ryan's sake. And Ryan got off the bed, index finger spinning the next bracelet in line on his wrist.



Ryan drew his bottom lip into his mouth and pulled the blankets away. "Can I - ?"



Jon blinked up at this nervous skeleton, beads on bone and nodded, biting his tongue. Brendon didn't even ask. Spencer just didn't. Ryan asked and slid between the sheets. He exhaled again. He only seemed to breathe when it was necessary, exhaling anxiety.



"We'd be up here forever if we start over," Ryan said. His eyes were bright, even the moon was beginning to dim.



Jon inched his finger between Ryan's wrist and the bracelet, the clockwork finger put to rest. Ryan smiled, eyes on Jon's. His long fingers were cold, freezing and he skimmed Jon's wrist for the bracelet that he made him. The green one. Jon felt the plastic beads slide around on his skin, Ryan's fingers deeply at a counterpoint with his own skin. And Jon sighed, a light exhalation, releasing anxiety.



"You'll be fine," he murmured. "I swear."



Ryan's head twitched, a curious tilt. He said, "Well, you mean, 'we', don't you? We, like, the - the four of us. Why'd you say 'you' as in just me?"



Under the covers, Jon shrugged. He never felt like he was in the band. Yes, he toured with them, he answered questions that made him want to maybe kick the interviewer in the head for, and he played bass, occasional keyboard. But he didn't write with them. It was still a process to work through. It made his heart ache, pound unapologetically in his chest, in his neck.



He didn't win awards, because he didn't help write Fever, he only won on a technicality. By default. He was the guy in the band that broke even because everybody else did. The new guy. He was still the new guy. He wanted to write, he wanted the melodies to come pouring out of him, wanted his name in the credits this time. Panic At The Disco is:



Brendon Urie - vocals
Spencer Smith - drums
Ryan Ross - guitar
Jon Walker - bass


Collectively, they could do this without Jon - and that scared him. Made him sweat when he couldn't sleep.



"Because," Jon said. "Because, you guys . . . You're the band, I'm. I'm still the freshman rushing his Frat, you know? This is like. If this is how you felt writing the last record, I'm not sure how you survived." Jon tried to smile, keep this light, but he couldn't. He tightened his grip on Ryan's beads, his bones, his wrist. And Ryan, he did the same, fingernails digging in on plastic and skin. The tendons in Jon's arm.



"Jon?" Ryan asked, strained and delicate. His words a balancing wire act in the circus. "Jon?"



He didn't know what made him do it, but he leaned into Ryan's personal space, breathed in his cotton candy scent, noses touching, hair catching from Ryan's socks on the floor, all static electricity. The static roared in Jon's ears, hummed on his lips. "Hm," was all he could muster. He looked at as much of Ryan as he could, eyes crossing in their sockets, aching. His wrist never in so much pain, never feeling so good or alive. Ryan's bones ground under his skin, and Jon breathed again.



"Jon," Ryan said again. "We want to keep you."